St. Paul – The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honored the league’s top performers in athletics and in the classroom with the announcement of the 2013-14 Winter and Spring Academic All-Conference Teams. The 2013-14 season proved to be a banner year for the league, which announced Wednesday it has recognized a record 606 MIAC Winter/Spring 2013-14 Academic All-Conference honorees. The 2013-14 cumulative total of 940 Academic All-Conference selections also smashed the MIAC’s previous record.

The MIAC Academic All-Conference distinction is awarded to student-athletes who meet a combination of academic and athletic requirements. The previous best for Winter/Spring honorees was 455 in 2012-13, and the previous overall record was 785, also set last year. In addition to the record 334 Fall 2013 honorees, the MIAC set new records with both seasonal releases and crushed the overall record by triple digits.

Academically, student-athletes must be a sophomore, junior, or senior with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale to qualify for MIAC Academic All-Conference recognition. Athletically, student-athletes in team sports must compete in 50 percent of their team’s regular-season varsity contests. The team sports eligible were baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s hockey, softball and men’s and women’s tennis. In baseball, pitcher’s must compete in a minimum of 10 contests to qualify.

The record spring total included 372 women and 234 men. Women’s outdoor track and field led with 99 honorees, and women’s indoor track and field was next with 82 and hockey and softball each had 47 honored. Men’s indoor track and field had 55 student-athletes honored, while men’s outdoor track and field was next with 48 selections, with baseball (36) and men’s hockey (35) also each recognizing 35 or more MIAC men.

The winter and spring individual sports – swimming and diving and track and field – both had new athletic criteria in 2013-14, which contributed to the record number of honorees. Student-athletes in both sports had to finish in the top 16 of an individual event at the MIAC Championships, or compete in a relay race, to be eligible for Academic All-Conference honors. Though their split season continued this spring, golf student-athletes were honored as a fall sport.